Zones: dividing the floor

Why it matters

A zone tells the platform what a piece of floor is for. That decides what may go there: racking only goes into zones meant for storage; a fire path must stay clear; the simulation unloads trucks onto staging and stages orders on marshalling. A floor without zones is a floor the platform cannot reason about.

In plain words

Think of zones as the rooms of an open-plan office, marked with tape on the floor. There are no walls, but everyone knows which area is the kitchen.

The zone types

Zone	Its job	Can hold racking?	Drawn from
Storage	Reserve storage.	Yes	Zones tab
Picking	The forward pick face, near dispatch.	Yes	Zones tab
Staging	The receiving floor, where inbound goods wait.	Floor positions only	Zones tab
Marshalling	The dispatch floor, where orders wait for trucks.	Floor positions only	Zones tab
Exclusion	Floor nothing may use.	No	Zones tab
Yard	Outside the building, inside the site.	No	Zones tab, once a site exists
Fire path	A walkway that must stay clear for escape.	No	Movement & Safety tab
Pedestrian path	A marked walkway.	No	Movement & Safety tab
Dangerous goods	Hazardous stock with separation distances.	Yes	The copilot or a DXF import
Bulk	Pallets block-stacked on the floor.	Block stacking only	The copilot or a DXF import
Quarantine	Goods held until inspected.	Floor positions only	The copilot or a DXF import
MHE charging	Where forklift batteries charge.	No	The copilot or a DXF import
Support	Workshop, plant, maintenance.	No	The copilot or a DXF import
Office	Office floor.	No	The copilot or a DXF import
Automation	Reserved for a future release.	No	Not yet

The ribbon's Dang. Goods, Bulk and Automation buttons are visible but marked "coming soon". Until they arrive, ask the copilot, for example "Draw a 20 × 15 m bulk zone in the north-west corner".

Floor positions are painted squares on the slab, one per pallet. They are reported as space for throughput, not counted as storage capacity, because goods on a staging floor are passing through, not stored.

In Warehouse Studio

Draw a zone

1. On the Zones tab, click the type, for example Storage.
2. Drag a rectangle on the canvas, inside the building.
3. The zone appears with its name and area as a caption, and in the Objects list under Zones.

The tool stays armed, so you can draw several zones of the same type. Press Esc when done. Fire path and pedestrian zones are on the Movement & Safety tab.

Adjust it

Select the zone and use the inspector:

• Title: the name printed on the drawing.
• Phase: whether it exists today. See Phases.
• Clear height: a lower ceiling for this area only, such as under a mezzanine. Blank means the building's.
• Appearance: whether it is filled and in which colour.
• Geometry: the exact start and size, in millimetres.
• Edges · free space: the distance from each side to the next wall or zone. These distances matter for racking, because a rack row against a wall needs no aisle on that side.

You can also drag its grips with Reshape (E). A storage zone's racking regenerates when the zone changes shape.

Rules zones obey

• A zone must sit inside the building, except a yard, which sits inside the site.
• Zones may not overlap each other.
• If a zone is refused, the message says by how much, for example "reaches 1.90 m beyond the building, move it 1 900 mm inside".

Try it

In Sandbox, draw:

• a Storage zone, about 100 × 78 m, across the top of the building;
• a Staging zone, about 20 × 20 m, bottom left;
• a Picking zone, about 30 × 10 m, bottom centre;
• a Marshalling zone, about 20 × 12 m, bottom right.

That is the demo warehouse's layout: goods come in on the left, are stored at the top, and leave on the right.

Words you just learned

Zone · zone type · floor position · free space · edge.